Nigeria’s New Copyright Levy Faces Early Test Over Who Controls Billions in Royalties
Nigeria spent decades trying to make its copyright levy work. Now that the money has finally started moving, a different question is taking centre stage: who actually controls it? That question...
Nigeria spent decades trying to make its copyright levy work. Now that the money has finally started moving, a different question is taking centre stage: who actually controls it?
That question emerged quickly after the Federal Government released about ₦1.2 billion in copyright levy funds to the Musical Copyright Society of Nigeria, MCSN, in February.
The payment was presented as a long-awaited breakthrough for Nigeria’s creative economy. Instead, it has opened a fight over representation, ownership and who has the legal authority to administer money collected from the use of copyrighted works. That is a much bigger problem than a disagreement over one payment.
If Nigeria is serious about building a functioning copyright economy, rights owners need to know who is collecting the money, whose interests that organisation represents, how much has been collected, how distributions are calculated and why a particular creator or rights holder receives what they receive. Without that confidence, even a perfectly designed levy can become another source of litigation.
The levy itself is not new. Nigeria has had provisions for copyright levies in its legal framework for decades. What has been missing has been consistent implementation. The Copyright Act 2022 retained the levy framework and gave the Nigerian Copyright Commission, NCC, powers relating to its collection and distribution.
The February payment was therefore significant because it showed that the system could finally produce actual money.
But the first major disbursement also exposed the weakness in the system.
Record Label Proprietors Initiative, ReLPI, challenged MCSN’s entitlement to administer the relevant sound recording levy funds. The organisation has argued that support for the copyright levy should not be confused with accepting one organisation’s authority to collect or distribute money belonging to rights holders it does not represent. That distinction goes to the heart of the dispute.
Music rights are complicated. A single recording can involve a songwriter, composer, performer, producer, publisher and record label. Copyright in the underlying musical composition is not necessarily the same as rights in the sound recording. Different parties can therefore have different economic interests in the same piece of music.
Who gets paid, and through which collective management organisation, matters.
The dispute reached the Federal High Court in Lagos, where an interim Mareva injunction was granted in February. The order required the preservation of the disputed levy funds and restrained the Central Bank of Nigeria and 20 banks from releasing or transferring the money pending further proceedings.
Suddenly, the country’s first major copyright levy payout was no longer just a policy success. It had become a governance test.
The question is uncomfortable but necessary. If the government can collect the money but rights owners cannot agree on who should administer it, how sustainable is the system?
That question becomes even more important when the potential size of the market is considered.
Private copying levies are used in many countries to compensate creators for copying that is difficult to monitor individually. Rather than attempting to track every private copy made on a phone, computer or storage device, a levy can be imposed on relevant equipment or media, with the proceeds distributed to rights holders. It is not a uniquely Nigerian idea.
Internationally, private copying and reprography systems generate more than €1 billion annually for creators, according to a 2026 global study by CISAC, BIEM, IFRRO and Stichting de Thuiskopie covering 196 countries.
The Nigerian market has its own peculiarities, particularly the scale of digital consumption and the enormous creative sector built around music, film and other forms of intellectual property.
That creates an obvious economic opportunity. It also creates an obvious compliance problem.
Once significant sums begin moving through the system, questions around beneficial ownership, representation, record keeping, audit trails and conflicts of interest become difficult to ignore.
A rights organisation administering collective royalties needs to be able to demonstrate whose rights it represents and why it is entitled to receive money on their behalf. The government, meanwhile, needs a system that can show what was collected, from whom, under which legal authority and how the final distribution was calculated.
That is where the copyright levy starts looking less like an entertainment policy and more like a financial governance system.
The government’s proposed reforms appear to recognise some of these concerns.
In July, Obi Asika, Director General of the National Council for Arts and Culture, said a joint ministerial team had completed reforms under which 50 percent of future copyright levy collections would go directly to rights owners, including artists and labels. Another 20 percent was proposed for the Creative Infrastructure Trust Company.
If implemented, that structure could change the economics of the scheme. But percentages alone will not settle the underlying problem.
The industry still needs answers about who qualifies as a rights owner, how ownership is verified, how disputes are handled and what happens when two organisations claim authority over the same work.
There is also the question of transparency. Creators are unlikely to remain satisfied with broad assurances that money has been collected and distributed. They will want statements, identifiable works, identifiable rights and an explanation of how their share was calculated. That is normal in any serious royalty system.
The same applies to businesses that may ultimately bear the cost of the levy. Importers, manufacturers and technology companies need clarity on which products attract the levy, how it is calculated, who collects it and how disputes are resolved.
A poorly administered levy can create costs without creating confidence.
There is another reason the governance question matters now.
The technology behind copying is changing much faster than the rules governing it. Smartphones have replaced many traditional forms of recording equipment. Cloud storage has changed where copies are kept. Streaming has altered how audiences consume music. Artificial intelligence is now introducing a new set of questions around the reproduction and use of protected works.
The copyright levy system being built today will therefore have to survive a very different digital environment tomorrow.
Nigeria has already taken the hardest political step, making the levy operational after years of delay.
The easier mistake now would be to assume that collecting the money means the job is done. It is not.
The first ₦1.2 billion has exposed the question that could determine whether the levy becomes a reliable source of income for Nigeria’s creative sector or another regulatory system defined by disputes.
Who owns the money? Who has the right to collect it? Who decides how it is divided? And can the government build a system transparent enough for artists, labels, businesses and the public to trust the answers? Those questions are now more important than the first payout itself.
Nigeria has finally got the levy moving. The real test is whether it can keep the money moving without losing the trust of the people it was designed to pay.
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